Articles 1 of 10 1/21/08 11:22

Articles http://www.oorah.org/articles_kiruv.htm 1 of 10 1/21/08 11:22 AM Articles http://www.oorah.org/articles_kiruv.htm Kiruv….And Then What? Talking (Long Distance) About Jewish Education Oorah: Knocking on Doors and Imagine a new family moves onto the block. To be friendly, the Changing Lives next-door neighbor invites the family for a Shabbos lunch. Shabbos arrives, and as the guests walk through the door, the hostess gently says, “You know, it’s customary to send a little gift along before Shabbos when you’re invited out.” A while later, one of the guest’s young children announces that he hates the gefilte fish. It doesn't taste like Mommy's. So the hostess helpfully informs the guest that her child has bad manners and should be taught how to refuse food politely. Then she instructs her own child not to learn from this young visitor. “Nothing personal, you know,” she tells the guest. “We just don’t want him to pick up any bad habits.” After the meal, the conversation flows in various directions. The father of the visiting family – an avid follower of local politics -- brings up the recent school-board elections. The host interrupts quickly to enlighten the guest: “This isn’t really an appropriate topic for the Shabbos table,” he softly advises. Welcome to the Family If the guests pursued this relationship any further, it would be a remarkable testimony to the power of forgiveness. The scenario seems unthinkable. But putting oneself in the guests’ place is instructive; it conveys the feeling that frequently rises in the heart of a newly religious person who is entering the religious world. To its credit, the religious community has opened its eyes to the rolling wreckage of Jewish demographics. People are beginning to understand that assimilation is no longer the problem; disappearance is. There are thousands of gentile Cohens and Goldsteins out there. Thousands of people think they are “half-Jewish.” Thousands born of gentile mothers think they’re 100 percent Jewish. In one town, an effort by the Torah community to open a Hebrew school for public school children drew a class that was at least half non-Jewish according to halachah. “The more Jewish the name, the less likely the kids were to actually be Jews,” said one person involved in the effort. “If the father was Jewish and they had his name, chances were good that the mother was not Jewish.” Then of course, there are the thousands of halachically Jewish people with names that evoke the counties of Ireland, the provinces of Italy or the deck of the Mayflower. Kiruv, as everyone can clearly see, is now an emergency room procedure. Efforts are underway across the country and around the world to stop the hemorrhage. While much obviously remains to be done, the Torah community is beginning to understand that it cannot just blithely watch its brethren drown in ignorance and fade from memory. Organizations, speakers, outreach programs, schools, websites, publications, seminars – they’re all out there, drawing Jews back to Torah one by one. But what happens then? What happens after someone decides, “Yes, this is what I want for my life”? Often, he is the “guest at the table” depicted in the opening story. His life-long habits are suddenly wrong. His frame of reference is different from that of everyone else in his new world. He and his children, brought up on American popular culture, are deemed bad influences who, “nothing personal,” are not welcomed in many yeshivos and many communities. Protecting the Wealth 2 of 10 1/21/08 11:22 AM Articles http://www.oorah.org/articles_kiruv.htm While this dynamic plays out in a way that is often uncomfortable and sometimes outright painful for a newly religious Jew, it flows from a source that is well supported throughout the Torah. Jews have an obligation to keep themselves apart from the culture and ways of the gentiles. Throughout most of the Orthodox world, the term “religious” is at least partly measured by the degree to which a person shuns the styles, entertainment and lingo of the secular world. Most yeshivos discourage or prohibit television, secular music and movies, which are the bread-and-butter of secular culture. Families do their best to keep their children from absorbing the values that pervade American society – a world that holds up wealth and pleasure as the true indicators of a life well lived. So what is the well-meaning observant Jew to do? If he lets secularly oriented children into his child’s school, he takes a chance on exposing the child – right there within the walls of the yeshivah – to exactly the influences he is trying to exclude. Yet if he doesn’t embrace the newly religious child, he is essentially sending the child back into the loving arms of the public school. To say the child can come –but he had better not mention anything about television or hum any Disney soundtracks – demands of the child an exhausting level of vigilance and self-control. The child will probably also need to develop a tolerance for rejection; he can expect that some of his new classmates will not be allowed to come play at his house. Once the kiruv world is finished applauding a person’s transformation (“He cut off his ponytail and put on a yarmulka…He took out his nose ring and threw out his television…She gave all her pants away to charity and put on a sheitel…”) the business of real life and its real complications begins. And that is when unglamorous day-to-day work of kiruv begins. “You have to be there not just for Shabbos, but for erev Shabbos when you’re busy and someone needs to talk,” says a long-time volunteer for Oorah Kiruv Rechokim, Lakewood, New Jersey. “It’s not just the first day of yeshivah – it’s the middle of the school year when there’s a problem with the teacher and the parents don’t know what to do. You have to be a whole support system to people.” The Balance Welcoming baalei teshuvah into the Torah community and learning to value what they bring to the table is as important a challenge for the observant Jewish world as is kiruv itself. One cannot invite the guest for lunch only to point out the error of his ways, even if the goal is help him correct them. For all the baal teshuva’s gaps in learning and basic Torah concepts, he has one attribute that should stir awe in the heart of any “frum-from-birth” Jew. He has the merit of being able to say “na’aseh v’nishma” right here, right now, in this world. He’s not accepting the Torah because he was raised with it and cannot conceive of any other life. He is choosing it, as did every Jew at Sinai, committing to a way of life he only vaguely understands. He may not be on the educated religious Jew’s “level,” but as the Talmud points out, he stands in a place where even a tzadik cannot stand. The possibility that he may negatively influence those who are raised in a religious environment is certainly a factor that needs to be considered, but it need not be a wall-to-wall principle that determines the community’s level of tolerance and acceptance. The fact is that most people who are on the road upward are trying to grow, not drag others down. They want to learn, not corrupt. Rav Aaron Schechter once advised a young man who had taken up residence in Dallas to learn in the kollel there. The man was worried that his child’s new friendships would influence him for the worse. 3 of 10 1/21/08 11:22 AM Articles http://www.oorah.org/articles_kiruv.htm Rav Schechter told the father to observe the dynamics between the children and see who was influencing whom. Most likely, a child brought up in a positive Torah environment will exert influence on the child with a weaker background, rather than vice versa. “There’s nothing gained without giving up something,” said the Oorah volunteer. “What are we giving up? Maybe we can’t be as exclusive as people would like to be. But look at the gain for Klal Yisrael. You’re saving people who would otherwise be lost. And each of these people is the root of a new generation. From one baal teshuvah today, you might have 50 grandchildren who will all go on to start families of their own.” Even educating the children brought up in Torah involves some “loss.” The rebbe who spends his time preparing and delivering a shiur for 20-year-olds is losing time from his own higher-level learning. Even more intellectual growth is sacrificed by the rebbe who spends his time teaching alef-beis. Yet the gain for Klal Yisrael is unquestionable. Good Advice This doesn’t mean that a person should throw all caution to the winds. There are families in which some members may be more vulnerable to outside influences. There are people exploring Torah Judaism who, for a variety of reasons, have the potential to do spiritual harm. The only way to know with certainty if an individual Jew should be welcomed into one’s school or home is to discuss the situation with a Rav who knows the people involved and can make an informed judgment. A wall-to-wall “yes” is no healthier for Klal Yisrael than a wall-to-wall “no.” Three Tales The director of a kiruv program told of one rebbe who consistently dismissed social pressure in order to do what he felt needed to be done for a fellow Jew.

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